The Death of the PC Gamer, and why Shaun White is the saviour of the universe.

In my younger years, I played video games purely in cartridge form. As you no doubt know, for me, the Sega Mega Drive is one of video gaming's all time greatest gifts to man. Sure it was simple, but simplicity is often also beauty. We shall come back to this part later on though.

Often in gaming simple hardware is fine, but we do like a bit of flair and thought in our games, for sure I had an Amiga to provide this, but christ it felt unwieldy and slow. Some years later I got my hands on a Playstation, followed by a Playstation 2, and again my passion for simple console gaming was reignited.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Tekken, Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot and Ridge Racer all provided those seminal, genre defining moments in history that sadly failed to materialise on the Sega Dreamcast. What I remember most profoundly though, was that the Playstation introduced me to the Command and Conquer series. I could while away hour after hour on that game, swearing uncontrollably, shouting incoherently at my family with regard to the threat of international terrorism and eventually bashing my 'X' button one time too many and destroying the odd control pad.

My world fell down though when I discovered that the Command and Conquer series is invariably a million times better on PC, there I said it, so too are many FPS games and if geeky simulations are your bag, then you need a PC, my friend.

This all sounds well and good, and after all you can't upgrade your consoles can you?

At this point, I converted totally and, up until 2007 infact, I gamed only on PC, and decided the communities that built up around some titles were truly epic, user created add-ons and forums full of empassioned gamers.. THIS is what gaming should be about.

Like everything though, theres a downside. I can honestly say I have NEVER owned a PC title that has allowed me to play with friends online the first time I ask it to, theres always some incomprehensible error message, a port problem, high latency or graphic error that has sucked ALL enjoyment from what should be a leisure activity. You can always contact tech support, who speak to you as if you are a moron, type a Jane Austen novel into their computers and come up with a series of solutions that simply don't work before signing off by telling you that you simply can't play your game without purchasing some kind of expensive upgrade or waiting twelve years for a suitable patch.

Then, as Counterstrike and Gears of War alike have taught us, online gaming both on and off PC, is full of idiots. Video games are about escapism, about YOU being the hero and YOU pulling off every perfect move.. fill one game with a group of people all trying to be the hero of the story and you have a recipe for gaming catastrophe. You cannot bag a kill on CS without being insulted and told you are invariably cheating and woe betide anyone who doesn't play a perfect round on GOW, because you can be certain your team-mates and opponents will not be shy in their criticism.

Once I played GOW with a raging hangover after another messy night on the town, as we know, no story involving 12 pints of Carling and a kebab is going to end well.. so I got up at midday and logged on to XBOX live, where I proceeded to play the most shockingly awful match you could ever witness and my teammates, all strangers, decided that I should not only be in better shape when log on but also that I should feel the kind of guilt that usually only war criminals would have to endure, for my performance.

This is unacceptable, my leisure time is just that, mine. I love gaming as much as the next nerd, maybe even more, but the very suggestion that your ability in game is the be all and end all is very, very wrong. I'd quite like to mess up sometimes, without being informed by an American I've never met that I must be a homosexual, quite how people can reach such conclusions is beyond me. Perhaps I am wrong though, and years of using a mouse to shoot has left me with the thumb dexterity of a horse. Yet, I'm missing the point, and this is where the simplicity argument comes in again.. during all this rage and kebab mess, I'd taken for granted that my XBox 360, the humble white box under my TV, had allowed me to game online with no fuss, no lag and no tech support.

Sure, it had just murdered Red Alert 3, but for anything else it had proved itself the superior machine when it comes to pure gaming pleasure, plus its added ability to allow only friends into your game is a perfect touch, if a little sad that ingame, the online community isn't quite as pleasant as out of game.

There is though, a cherry atop the cake, Shaun White Snowboarding. Not only a fantastic single player game.. if a little tricky at times [The Yen at the end of the rail lines in Alaska], but it is superb online because it removes many of the over competetive elements if other titles. Normally, I won't pick up a game unless it provides at least 3 types of machine gun, but as Snowboarding is one of God's greatest gifts to the kids of cool, I made an exception and found that if you take it online.. regardless of how drunk you are, the people are fun, social and respectful. Pure perfection for less than £40, who'd have believed it?